


Finding Home by Backing Away From Hell

by NyghtingaleDemon



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angsty Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Not Oblivious (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Emotional Baggage, Hurt Crowley, Insecure Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Praise Kink, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley, Self-Hatred, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 02:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20574776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyghtingaleDemon/pseuds/NyghtingaleDemon
Summary: Crowley doesn't know the meaning of the word "safe".





	Finding Home by Backing Away From Hell

**Author's Note:**

> This kind of wrote itself, so I'll only take partial credit/blame.  
It's my first fanfic, though, so thanks in advance for being kind.

Crowley doesn’t know the meaning of the word “safe”. 

More precisely, he is familiar with the OED’s definition of the word, but he has no experience with the concept himself and he’s not quite convinced it’s a real thing. He thinks, sometimes, that he must have felt safety at some point before his Fall, but then again, maybe not, because how safe could one be in a Heaven where asking a few questions can get you cast out forever? 

No, the best Crowley hopes for is to avoid any imminent threat for as long as possible.

Although he makes it look really cool on Earth, it is truly Hell being a demon. It is not, as the Baptist preachers would have people believe, all rock concerts and drugs and orgies. Nor is it, as the spicier flavors of Evangelicals claimed, literal burning in a lake of fire or being eternally flayed. In fact, it’s closer to Dante’s version, in the sense that whatever you hate or fear most is always menacing you in some way. It’s all very personal, She’d seen to that.

What Crowley fears most is that he’d deserved to be cast out – for what he was, not for the questions he’d asked, those were just an excuse – that he had been Her one mistake. Naturally, what Crowley hates most is himself, followed closely by Hell in general. 

Crowley’s personal Hell is the fact that he is never acceptable, he doesn’t belong. He hadn’t been good enough to remain an angel, but he was a bit crap at being a demon, too. She’d left him just enough of a heart to make sure he could never be fully evil. Heaven didn’t want him, nor did Hell, except for all those memos he’d sent in taking credit for the worst of humanity’s impulses.

The demon Crowley spent most of his six thousand years lying low and trying to keep out of sight. Whether Form shapes Nature or the other way around, he continues to act like a snake in the grass, coiled tightly and ready to strike at anything before he knows whether or not it’s actually a threat.

But there’s this angel.

Aziraphale is everything Crowley is not, right down to their performed personalities. Where Crowley plays the rock star demon to cover the certainty of his own worthlessness, Aziraphale acts the gentle, bumbling librarian to avoid showing his real power and strength, even to himself. 

Crowley doesn’t know the meaning of the word “safe”. 

So he doesn’t know what to call the way he feels with Aziraphale.

It can’t really be safety, of course. Aziraphale has hurt him many times over the years, once so badly that Crowley had slept off the rest of the century. He’s struck at the angel, too, sometimes when it was deserved, but often when it wasn’t. None of this is surprising. What he doesn’t understand is why Aziraphale sticks around. 

It can’t really be safety. Comfort, maybe…familiarity…. Perhaps the angel you know is better than the angel you don’t. Crowley knows Aziraphale, better than the demon knows himself. He can predict Aziraphale’s moods, his reactions, even what he’ll order for lunch. Crowley knows how to get almost anything he wants out of the angel.

He does not know that this is because Aziraphale would give him just about anything he ever wanted without a second thought. 

\---

Crowley is good at Not Feeling. It’s been his saving grace – pardon the blasphemy – since he Fell, allowing him to do what he did and be what he was, without the one interfering with the other. So when Aziraphale miraculously returns from being discorporated, Crowley only makes a joke. He sees the angel in his full glory and power for the first time in six millennia, flaming sword restored, but instead of being floored by the sight, Crowley focuses on telling the young Antichrist what he must do to save the world. Crowley very carefully ignores the impulse to fall on his knees in worship that leaps into his heart when Aziraphale’s wings stretch out behind him.

Back in London, they fight – a blazing row like they’ve not had in centuries. Crowley is more than happy to face down the whole of the Heavenly Host to protect Aziraphale. But he doesn’t want the angel going into Hell for him. He won’t have it, and that’s final.

That’s final until Aziraphale pulls himself up to his full height and unfurls his wings. The flaming sword is gone, but he is still a guardian. This glorious being who, in human form, never speaks above a hush, pins Crowley to the wall and rattles his ears with the insistence that he **_WILL_** keep Crowley safe, whatever it takes, whether the demon likes it or not.

Crowley is speechless. He doesn’t believe in “safe”. But Aziraphale will not be moved. 

\---

Heaven is not like Crowley remembers it. It used to be warm and loving and wild – now it’s cold and corporate and sterile. The light burns, but not because it’s holy. And Gabriel, the violet-eyed bastard, has certainly lost his way with words since She stopped using him as Her messenger. Crowley enjoys spitting Hellfire at those pretentious archangels, although he wishes he could have singed Gabriel.

Waiting on a park bench, Crowley only relaxes when he sees himself – that is, Aziraphale – arrive unharmed. He wants to clasp the angel in his arms, the relief is so strong, but he chooses to Not Feel that. As it turns out, Aziraphale had rather a grand time, as well. Crowley laughs out loud and wishes he could have seen it. He owes the angel, so lunch it is.

\---

Three weeks after the world didn’t end, the demon and the angel share a bottle of wine for at least the seven-hundredth time in the course of their friendship. It’s comfortable, familiar, and Crowley smiles more than he has in the last century. Aziraphale is happy, too, which makes Crowley even happier. It isn’t safety, but they are out of danger for the time being. He wants to keep the angel like this, always. It’s comfort…familiarity….

Love.

Aziraphale says it first, but only because Crowley doesn’t. He can’t quite wrap his mind around it. The strongest, most beautiful angel ever produced by Heaven loves the one creature She’d ever created that was actually Bad? Crowley can’t stop the tears falling from his eyes. He wants to strike out at the angel, but he can’t bring himself to do so when Aziraphale pulls him close and whispers a litany of praise against his cheek.

_Beautiful. Kind. Caring and compassionate. Most magnificent of Her creations. **Good**._

Crowley’s knees buckle; Aziraphale catches his weight and eases them both to the floor.

_Too good for Hell and far too good for Heaven. Sweet, loving, and so protective._

Aziraphale lifts Crowley’s face to wipe away his tears. Wide ocean-blue eyes meet a gilded golden gaze. Myriad unspoken promises, pledges, questions, and answers pass silently between them. Lifetime upon lifetime of immortal emotions crashing against them like waves on rocky shores. One nods, then the other, and then their lips meet and Crowley knows nothing more.

\---

Crowley doesn’t know the meaning of the word “safe”. 

But he’s beginning to learn, and he even thinks it might be a real thing. Each day he spends basking in a sunny window of the bookshop without being disturbed makes a dent. Every time he curls himself around Aziraphale’s shoulders, whether in serpent or human shape, and he’s welcomed with affection and praise, he’s a little more inclined to believe.

He spends his evenings with his head or his legs in the angel’s lap, depending on whether Aziraphale is reading or talking to him. They try every restaurant in town, then start over. Night after night, they make love like it was their first and last time together, learning each other’s bodies as well as they know each other’s hearts and minds. And night after night, Crowley sleeps wrapped safely in his angel’s arms.

And on those nights when Crowley wakes, shuddering and sobbing, pulled out of dreams he can’t articulate and desperate for something to ground him in reality, Aziraphale holds him fast and whispers soothing words of love and safety until the tension drains from Crowley’s body and his breathing evens out. He doesn’t ask what the dreams are – it doesn’t matter, as long as he’s there to calm his demon when they strike – but sometimes he gets a feeling, from Crowley’s tone or conversation, and he sits up waiting for the first signs of a nightmare so he can head it off with kisses and a firm embrace. Crowley has no words to adequately express how grateful he is for this, but he always responds the same way. “Sweet Angel,” he whispers, nuzzling into Aziraphale’s neck, “my sweet, precious Angel.”


End file.
